Answer:
Qualitatively? We have men and women who have outstanding Jewish
educations, and who are willing to take the time to share their
knowledge. We have serious non-observant Jews seeking deeper Jewish
roots. We have Jews still trying to see exactly where they fit it,
Jews who are struggling, and learning, and actively improving
themselves. Some reply carefully and kindly; others use their wits
like scalpels, cutting away at the first sign of nonsense. We have
talented writers, whose prose is often poetic. Counted among us are
Hassidic Jews, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and
miscellaneous Jews. We've got atheists and secularists, Hebraists and
Yiddishists. And we are all learning from one another and teaching one
another.
Quantitatively? This is difficult to answer. When Usenet was smaller,
surveys were done of the newsgroup to try to determine the
denominational breakdown of the readership. This survey involved
regular postings to the newsgroup, together with periodic mail sent to
newsgroup participants. Nowadays, some of the approaches taken in
conducting the survey (i.e., the sending of notes to newsgroup readers
unsolicited) would be considered to be spam. So a survey hasn't been
done recently. Note: If you are interested in conducting one, please
contact the FAQ maintainer <[5]maintainer@scjfaq.org>, and he will be
glad to provide you with the scripts and ideas from the last survey.
What did the last survey say? First, note that it only applied to
S.C.J, and was last conducted in 1995, well over 5 years ago. There
were just under 332 respondants (or approximately 1% of the readership
at that time). This survey showed the following breakdowns:
1995 1993 1991 1989
JC [Conservative ]: 30.12% 22.06% 28.98% 37.12%
JO [Orthodox ]: 27.11% 31.62% 36.33% 29.55%
JL [Liberal/Reform ]: 13.86% 12.87% 10.20% 11.36%
JS [Secular/Humanistic ]: 5.72% 5.15% 3.67% 2.27%
JR [Reconstructionist ]: 5.42% 2.21% 1.63% 1.52%
JU [Unspecified Jewish ]: 4.22% 4.78% 2.86% N/A
JN [Non-Affiliated ]: 3.01% 4.04% 2.45% 0.76%
AA [Agnostic or Atheist ]: 3.01% 2.94% 0.82% 6.06%
OT [Other ]: 2.41% 3.68% 4.49% 0.76%
JT [Traditional ]: 1.51% 3.68% N/A N/A
CF [Christian Fndmntlist]: 0.90% 1.47% 3.67% N/A
CM [Christian Mainstream]: 0.60% 0.74% 2.04% N/A
CC [Catholic ]: 0.30% 1.84% 1.22% N/A
CO [Christian Other ]: 0.30% 1.47% 1.22% N/A
HI [Hindu ]: 0.00% 0.37% N/A N/A
Gross Breakdown:
J [Jewish ]: 91.87% 86.40% 86.12% 82.58%
A [Atheist/Agnostic]: 3.01% 2.94% 0.82% 6.06%
O [Other ]: 2.41% 3.68% 4.49% 0.76%
C [Christian ]: 2.11% 5.51% 8.16% N/A
H [Hindu ]: 0.00% 0.37% N/A N/A
It is interesting to contrast these numbers with the results mentioned
in [6]Question 2.21.

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